113-Year Record Cold in Pittsburgh, 27 in MI

UPDATE: Blog reader Scott found a Co-op reading of 27 degrees at Atlanta, Michigan (probably not a typo as they were 6 degrees lower than Co-op Vanderbilt yesterday too). Mount Leconte, Tennessee fell to 39.

UPDATE: Blog reader Mark also pointed out that it was 45 in Garrett County, Maryland, very impressive.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: I was amazed to see 43 degrees at the weather station at my house this morning, in the middle of July! Here are some other local temperatures in Centre County:

Dave (Zion): 42 Me (Cato Park): 43 Bellefonte: 44 Carrie (Snow Shoe) Joe Bastardi (Boalsburg): 46 Josh (Bellefonte): 47 AccuWeather (Park Forest): 47 Lemont: 47 KUNV: 48 State College HS (State College): 48 Elliot Abrams (Port Matilda): 49 Walker Building (PSU): 52 Penn State Weather Station: 52*

Here is a map of the temperatures early this morning in the Northeast:

A number of record lows have been broken, here is a partial list as of 8:30 AM (we won't really know how many until NCDC releases the data tomorrow morning). This morning's temp and the previous year are shown. Note that Pittsburgh hadn't been this cold on this day for 113 years!

Houghton Lake, MI (38 / 1978) Rochester, NY (48 / 1926) Pittsburgh, PA (51 / 1888) Binghamton, NY (50 / 2007)

Locations falling below 40 F (officially) were:

Atlanta, MI (27) Mount Washington, NH (33.8)* Grayling, MI (35.6) Cadillac, MI (39) Mount Leconte, TN (39)* Pellston, MI (37) Big Rapids, MI (39)

*Not surprising - very high locations. It was also 52 this morning at Mount Mitchell, North Carolina. Data for Grandfather Mountain was not available.

NCDC says about 30 other record lows have been set so far this July in the Northeast; a total of 169 new daily record low temperatures have been set nationwide (many of those in the West).

How unusual are the low temperatures for this time of year here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map]? For the month of July, monthly low temperatures at PSU (the city's official climate station at Penn State) ranged from 47 to 57 since I've lived here (since 1998), so 50's are not unusual - below that, readings are unusual; it has only dipped into the 40's three times, the lowest being 47. Based on a cursory look at the data, the middle of the month seems like the least favored time to dip low; this may be the most significant statistic.

*Now some people will argue that urban sprawl at the location of station has caused the station to recently favor warmer readings, but the data's the data and as of this morning the Penn State weather station appears to have only fallen to 52, which seems high to me but that should be the low for 7am-7am.